Manuel de Almeida / LUSA
André Ventura with Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa
“You still don’t know everything. This president has truly conditioned it. Enough, PS and PSD know that.”
The candidate for Bethlehem Andre Ventura This Tuesday, he accused the President of the Republic of having conditioned the approval of the new laws on foreigners and nationality and criticized him for his silence on the health situation.
“You still don’t know everything. But they will know soon. This President truly conditioned the Foreigners Law and the Nationality Law. It truly conditioned. Who is in the main parties, in the Enough, in the PS, in the PSD, you know that. There was a behind-the-scenes political conditioning to work on nationality and immigration”, maintained André Ventura during a lunch-debate promoted by the International Club of Portugal, which took place in a hotel in Lisbon.
In response to a question from the audience, the leader of Chega argued that it is up to the President of the Republic to be “interventive” in the sense of “saying when things are going in the wrong direction”, adding that the current head of state, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, will have used this possibility of intervening to condition the final version of the new laws on foreigners and nationality.
Ventura stated that this behind-the-scenes intervention, which he considered legitimate, happened because Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa understands that “it is not necessary to control immigrationhave more control over who enters” and is also against the loss of nationality due to convictions for serious crimes.
After highlighting the legitimacy of the alleged intervention by the President of the Republic, Ventura said that, if elected, he would never block laws that would take away nationality from perpetrators of crimes, but added that he would use his power as head of State to, for example, prevent the rise in fuel prices.
Still on the role of the head of state in governance, André Ventura considered that it is up to the President “to have a role in conducting the country’s affairs in certain areas”, criticizing that Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa “stays in silence” given the failures, reported in recent days, in the response of the National Health Service (SNS).
“We all remember Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa saying that a Secretary of State had a burden because her husband had a debt that was affecting her, in the Government of António Costa. So that burden exists. And the burden of people dying while waiting for INEM care, (…) more than 100 were born outside the maternity ward, the fact that people continue to die due to lack of medical care, the President remains silent”, he shot.
And he added: “So we didn’t need to have a President, frankly. So we can put a King again. Because if it’s to do nothing, if it’s to have a first lady, if it’s to cut ribbons, to ride on a horse. I’m not for that. If they want me as a trinket figure, I’m not good for that. And I think everyone here knows that. Nobody is going to vote for André Ventura by mistake, of absolute certainty”, he added.
